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004 (Super Galaxy)
Albert Heinrich, also known as 004, is one of the nine protagonists in the 1980 animated film Cyborg 009 The Movie: Legend of the Super Galaxy. As with some stories in the original manga by this point, he plays the part of the secondary male character in the storyline. Appearance Albert is of an average height and somewhat muscular build, with silver hair in a neck-length cut, and incredibly sallow skin that appears in more of a grey tone in some sequences. His eyes are blank and white, not necessarily being an indicator of him being blind but keeping true to the "robot eyes" detail drawn by Ishinomori He wears the standard red 00 cyborg uniform in battle, with its trademark yellow scarf and oversized yellow buttons. When not in uniform, he can first be seen wearing a lavender dress shirt and an olive green three-piece suit and tie. He later wears one of the beige "Gilmore Labs" jumpsuits. Due to the obviously metallic and gunmetal gray appearance of his gun hand, he wears gloves when in civilian clothing. As shown in Yasuhiro Yamaguchi's anatomy chart concept art, this Albert bears the blocky, metallic body that was shown in the manga arc The Underground Empire of Yomi, as opposed to the more humanoid-looking body of his 1979 anime incarnation or taking into account the artificial skin appearance he had in the late period of the manga. However, the anatomy chart does describe the metallic body as being covered in a protective artificial flesh coating, which is also suggested in the manga Yomi arc when he mentions his "plastic skin". Personality Albert is a dry, somber man with a sharp tongue, haunted by the loss of his lover Hilda but attempting to keep a strong facade. He confesses to Jet privately of his loathing of being a cyborg, and the wish that he could have died beside her. Aside from him playing the older foil to Joe, he and Jet are shown to be close as team members, with Albert being annoyed at Jet wasting his time wondering if Joe's fallen for Princess Tamara, and then later parroting Jet's line of "Farewell, my friend!" ("Abayo dachi ko") when the team splits and he departs with the group set to go to Zoa's base. With his death-seeking nature coming to the forefront after he's shot in the base, Albert insists on staying behind, confessing to Joe that he'd wanted to die ever since he was converted into "that monster 004" and this being his chance to sacrifice himself. He remains smirking through his pain up until his death. After being brought back to life, he appears to be in a better mindset about his life as a cyborg, and abruptly and willingly rejects his remade human body in favor of being equal to the rest of the team, believing the fact that he was brought back as a human an "error". Abilities As with most other incarnations, Albert's right hand is visibly metallic and a machine gun, while his left hand is covered in artificial skin and has a slot where the knife blade can pop out. Yamaguchi's anatomy chart depicts an X-Ray view of his left hand, also showing that his finger darts from the early manga are visible, even if they are never used. His bullets are depicted as small blue energy blasts within the film, and his knee projectiles also appear to be altered to be energy-based. His deadliest weapon would be the micro-sized bomb in his abdomen, which is shown to activate and illuminate his body in a white light once it's breached. History Notes *Some light novel incarnations of the film, as well as supplementary guidebooks, add a further layer to Albert's sacrifice, revealing that the first shot that breached his body had triggered a countdown for his nuclear bomb and that he was bound to explode and die, regardless of whether he had stayed at Zoa's base or had opted to go back with Joe. Thus, Albert staying behind was also more out of necessity to not endanger the team. Some interpretations, based on the above information, would also speculate if Albert's suicidal speech was more of an act. *The 004 and 002 dynamic is given more of a resolution in the original screenplay, the manga tie-in, and two of the light novel incarnations, After his confession about wanting to be remodeled as a cyborg, Albert has a further conversation with either Saba (in the manga tie-in) or Great Britain (in the screenplay), and then approaches a sulking Jet, asking him of what happened to his matador career and offering for the two of them to go traveling to Canada. This then segues into the final scene and resolution to the 009 and 003 plot. *All light novels except the Ken Wakasaki version include his final confession about being brought back as a human and wanting to be re-converted into a cyborg. The omission of this scene in Wakasaki's telling can probably leave readers to assume that the Vortex (and Joe) had brought him back in a newly-spawned cybernetic body, putting him back as the way he was before he died. *The initial TV rebroadcasts of this film cut the entire sequence where Albert reveals himself to be alive, due to viewers that had criticized the cliches and anticlimactic feeling behind the entire outcome of him being resurrected, as well as how out-of-character it felt for him to refuse his humanity so abruptly. This edit only created more confusion for film viewers who were introduced via the television airings, particularly the ones that would later buy the home video releases and see that he had in fact come back at the end of the film. *The tie-in manga for Super Galaxy depicts Albert in the same outfit in the main plot that he can be briefly seen wearing in the flashback to Hilda's death; the bomber jacket, pants, and ascot. *Unusually, the English dub by Frontier Enterprises renamed this character Heinrich Struller, perhaps due to the fact that he was only referred to as "Heinrich" besides his team number and it perhaps being felt that it would make more sense for it to be his given name. Thus, the line of "Albert Heinrich, forgive me." that was spoken by Joe was altered accordingly. Category:Male characters Category:Cyborgs